As a genderqueer person, I have been struggling for several years with the strong binary of the Pagan holidays.
Yes, I tell myself, they are about fertility and making food (and making people) and one needs both ends of the spectrum to do that. Absolutely. It’s not like none of the Celtic gods and goddesses were gay or at least bi, for eff‘s sake. But in an agrarian society, there are eggs that need fertilizing. Reproduction is essential. Sympathetic magic, however, does not require boy to meet girl.
But even so, many of the stories are about the struggle of the God to “reclaim” the Goddess so he can rule over the land (excuse me but blech ptui), particularly during the Equinox cycles, one of which we observed just a few days ago. And that one is particularly yucky, because the bitch betrays the Sun God with her lover and co-murderer, the Lord of Misrule, Dark King of Winter. They don’t actually kill him (immortals are so hard to kill), but he barely survives the attack, and has to be nursed back to health by the greatest magician in the land, also quite a piece of work, before going back to his abusive girlfriend and kicking her lover’s ass, after which the Sun God and the Goddess of Spring (who are both son/mother and bf/gf for a further eww) reunite like nothing happened, la-de-dah, and they get married. Give me strength.
I don’t know what the solution is, but there’s gotta be a better way to celebrate this story. Why couldn’t two non-binary types shift between two aspects through the year? Sun side and Shadow side, Equinox to Equinox? They could preside over a magical garden or something. With a Sun Dial in the center that becomes a Moon Dial in the Long Dark.
I don’t know, y’all, I’m just spitballing here, but this sounds like a way more interesting story to me. And honestly, way more plausible than that old she-plotted-with-her-lover-to-kill-him-but-they’re-good-now soap opera, and it restores intelligence and integrity to the pair of them, too. Instead of being vacuous dunderheads they become a true symbiotic partnership. Their bonding/blending at the Equinoxes gives the Wheel a powerful spin, and because either one could be anything, everything is possible.
(Totally, well, not quite totally, off-topic parenthetical here: I adore the notion of genderqueer because it says I am my core and my passions and my truth and not a construct. I am my gifts and my talents and my loves and my wounds and my fire and my faith first and foremost, and I don’t feel any desire or need to fit upon some spectrum of maleness-to-femaleness somebody made up to keep women subservient. I will be and do what I desire to be and do, and I’m a grown up and get to dress myself however I want, so there.)
If a spiritual movement or religion doesn’t shift with the times, it risks being left behind.
That’s as true for the Pagan and Neo-Pagan religions as it is for monotheism. The Earth-based faiths claim that Nature is their primary teacher, but they don’t, at least not very often, incorporate all the gender-fluidity of Nature into their standard ritual and liturgy. There are numerous creatures who are non-binary, or both sexes at once, or switch between sexes when there’s a shortage of one of the other, or have long term same-sex partnerships. I could go on and on. And maybe there were stories about genderqueer lovers in Celtic mythology, just as there are in First Nations spirituality, but whoever wrote the bulk of the stories down for some reason didn’t include any of those. Hmm. Got any notions why, Padre?
Gender was something that was made up a long, long time ago, when men decided their penises overrode women’s autonomy. Women have been fighting for equality every since, and now, more and more people are seeing the binary for what it is – a lie and a tool and a bad deal for everybody. I see the movement toward rejecting the binary as a vigorous and irreversible return to what we really are, rejecting the idea of just being a bunch of people being stuck in roles they are programmed to play. We are stepping out of the gender trap and into the freedom to live and love as we feel in our hearts. Our faiths had better start reflecting this reality or a whole bunch of people are gonna leave them in the dust, and with good reason.
I’ll work on the Equinox story, and maybe by Autumn, I’ll be ready to share it.